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Cookie Seller Doesn’t Let Anything Get in Her Way

If you needed to have surgery, what time of year would you schedule it? Maybe early January, after the busy holiday season? Or, during the summer when you have more time?

Last year, Cheradin and her family knew that she needed to have surgery to straighten both of her tibia bones, which did not straighten correctly after her birth. The surgery would reduce or eliminate the pain Cheradin had in her legs since she was three years old. When it came down to setting a date, Cheradin, a very active Girl Scout Brownie, told her mom, “We have to do it after Cookie season.”

Cheradin has been the top cookie seller in her troop every year since kindergarten, so Cheradin’s mom knew how important Cookie season was to her daughter. “This is a little girl that is highly competitive, has to be the top cookie seller, has to be the top everything. That’s just who she is,” Dee reported. So they waited and scheduled surgery for after cookie season.

Cheradin went to work selling cookies, motivated by her competitive spirit and a promise her mom made that if she sold 800 boxes, she could go to horse camp in the summer. Cheradin reached her goal eight days before cookie sales ended, and then she came up with a new proposal for her mom. She asked if she could go to a second camp with her cousin Leah if she sold 1,000 boxes. Dee laughed as she reported what happened next: “I said ‘I’ll make you a deal. You hit 1,100, and I’ll send you to Camp Lakamaga with Leah for four days.’”

With the extra incentive in the final days of cookies sales, Cheradin sold another 323 boxes, raising the total number of boxes she sold to 1,123, becoming the top cookie seller in her service unit and the 79th highest seller out of more than 32,000 girls in the council.

The day after cookie sales ended, Dee, who is also one of the cookie moms for the troop, finished up all of her cookie entries. “The girls were awesome,” added Dee, “Literally the day—that Sunday—when cookie sales ended at six o’clock, I had every dollar.” And then two days later, Cheradin went into surgery.

After a long healing process and spending months in a wheelchair, Cheradin went to Camp Northwoods for horse camp and then to Camp Lakamaga with her cousin. A Girl Scout Junior this year, she also made the hockey team. “She’s a very persistent little girl,” Dee said, “She doesn’t let anything get in her way.”